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The first question you need to answer is how portable you want. External hard drives fall into 2 categories - the more portable USB powered ones, and the more affordable but less portable ones with a separate power adapter. If you want easy portability the USB powered is WONDERFUL. I bought a seagate usb powered 250gb unit, and love it. I use it like a giant thumb drive (I regularly work with HD video files, which eat up space FAST, so a regular thumb drive wouldn't really do the trick).

Decent rule of thumb is that you'll get around twice the GB for your money if you're willing to have a separate power adapter, and you can pick up a 1TB unit on Newegg for like $90-100. Heck, 1.5TB is only ~$120 IIRC.

Check reviews on sites like Newegg & Amazon to get an idea of who makes good units, and who makes duds. Probably safe with Seagate or Western Digital on the USB powered units, and add Samsung to the list when looking at the separate powered units, they have been the highest rated on newegg.

Another thing to consider is that a more pricey, separate power adapter style drive can be had with a eSATA connection, which would give performance equivalent to an internal drive. But, that's overkill for most people, and unnecessary if it's just being used for backups.